Differences
by this kills the man
Summary: Infinite gets a haircut. Gadget notices. They deal with the emotional baggage through... therapy? It's a start. (Also, Amy's there. That's cool.)


**mmmmm its been a while hasnt it**

 **forces made all my backstory shit au so im gonna just. take the things i like from canon, add it to old friends au, and just,,,, ignore everything else lol**

 **anyways infinite's not-infinite name is finn, i love amy, sonic's just tryna help, and gadget and finn both need a hug right about now**

* * *

It's a simple difference, so small that Gadget doesn't notice it at first.

Finn's there, at the breakfast nook, reading the newspaper, and when Gadget walks in (always the last to wake up, today's no exception) he makes it all the way to the fridge before his eye spots the change in shape, the abnormal smallness of the silhouette in his peripheral.

He turns, slowly, as though he'll disturb the air if he moves too fast, and says, perplexed, "Did you cut your hair?"

(Gadget really looks at Finn for the first time, and his brain confirms what his eyes whispered to him mere moments ago; short, white locks tickle Finn's neck, replacing the usual mane of white down his back.)

Finn looks up from his periodical, makes eye contact, and shrugs. "Needed a change. Do you like it?"

Gadget's still several paces behind where he needs to be, not yet at 'Do you like it?' and still at _it wasn't short last night._

Finn's not exactly a master hairdresser. Gadget eyes the thin locks, the jagged ends, the slight shake in Finn's hands as he watches Gadget watch him; it all screams impulse, midnight and afraid, chop it off, feel better now but horrified in the morning, all too aware that it's too late to take it back. Gadget sees it in his eyes, the need for reassurance, validation.

Gadget sighs, a small depression of his chest, and smiles. "Yeah, it's nice."

It's not so much that Finn smiles, or speaks, but his carriage lifts ever so slightly, and the newspaper stops shaking.

(Gadget also sees, for the first time, the dark circles under Finn's eyes, and his mind wanders.

Finn, three a.m., sheets tossed by nightmares and bed absent one, stumbling to the bathroom and staring himself in the mirror with wild, cold eyes. He doesn't recognize the face in the mirror. He can't feel his own hands. The world is little too dark, too foggy, obscured by nightfall and burnt lightbulbs, and the space feels liminal, unreal.

Finn runs the tap, listens to the whine of the faucet, lets it ring in his ears as he splashes his face with cold water, and the hair on his head hangs limp over his neck, pouring over his shoulders, a cascade of white. He forgot to put it up last night.

It's this simple fact that occupies his mind, drags his hands into the drawers for a hair tie, but instead his fingers brush against something hard, sharp. Scissors.

Gadget's mind stops there, not willing to breathe life into the image of Finn, breath heavy, eyes watering, hands trembling, sweeping hair into the garbage and carefully climbing back into bed limb by limb like he'll break if he bends too far.)

It's later, when the day is over, and they're home, sprawled out over the couch and recharging after errands and separate schedules and distance that Finn finally says it aloud, despite its sitting heavy in the air since that morning and never leaving:

"I need help."

Gadget, head in his lap and eyes on the television, doesn't look up, doesn't even bother raising his head to speak and instead mumbles his words into Finn's knee. "Astute observation, Einstein. How did you ever come to that conclusion?"

Finn huffs. "I'm serious."

"I know you are." Now Gadget rolls over to look up, frowning when he sees the disconcerted expression drawing Finn's brows together. "You haven't cut your hair since third grade."

Gadget sees the cogs turn in his head, and then finally Finn says, barely a whisper, "Third grade?"

"Yeah."

Finn deflates, sinks back into the couch, and then sinks further with a sigh that flattens his lungs. "I _really_ need help."

At first, they dismiss therapy outright, because they don't think a psychologist will hear "I killed thousands of people because I got kidnapped by a mad scientist and forcibly possessed by a rock" and _not_ immediately send Finn to the psyche ward (or, alternatively, a prison cell, since Finn's still technically a wanted criminal. Only technically). It's only after another night of deliberation and (for Finn) staring, sleepless, at a wall that they decide that they need _someone_ to talk to.

(When Gadget mentions this to Sonic while they're out doing "cleanup" (getting rid of debris in X city or Y town because Knuckles is occupied), almost shouting to project his voice over the creak of the pipe they're lifting from the sidewalk, he's not expecting the immediate response Sonic shoots back.

"Talk to Amy," says Sonic, casually, dusting off his hands and reaching for a chunk of… building? Sidewalk? Gadget can't tell. Concrete something. They're both going to have to lift that one. "She's great with emotions and stuff."

"But Amy hates Finn!" Gadget cries. "Why would she be his therapist?"

"Well, she likes you," Sonic says. "Maybe that'll help?")

When Gadget relays this suggestion to Finn, he's just as appalled. "Talk to _who?"_

"Amy," Gadget says, hands worrying over each other and eyes somewhere to the right of Finn's face.

Finn deadpans, "She hates me," and Gadget thinks it's like poetry, how his conversations seem to rhyme.

He sighs. "I'm aware."

The moment they show up on Amy's doorstep, and she opens the door, eyeing Finn like he's a block of rotten cheese she just found in her fridge, Gadget's one-hundred percent convinced that this isn't going to work.

This feeling continues as she ushers them (Gadget) inside and offers them (Gadget) some tea, to which Gadget politely refuses and Finn stays silent. She brings out three cups of chamomile anyways (Finn's was likely an afterthought, but Gadget considers it progress), and they're seated in her living room, Finn's hand in Gadget's, Amy in the seat opposite, when she starts speaking in earnest. It's not what Gadget expects at all.

A simple question, four words, and the most perplexed voice Gadget's ever heard from Amy; "You cut your hair?"

It's an unexpected question followed by an equally unexpected answer: "Midnight crisis," Finn says, and it's with a voice that's not nearly as small as it was hours ago, when they were both leaving the apartment and Gadget asked if he had his wallet. That was the quiet "Yes" of a man half his size and age; this is his normal, low timbre, conversational, like Amy wasn't glaring daggers at him mere seconds ago.

Amy's posture shifts, and while the air's still unnaturally cold, her face opens up just a little more. "That's why you're here."

"Yeah," Finn says, frank.

She hums, and Gadget's nerves spike.

It's an hour later, and Gadget's walking back to the metro station with Finn to head home when he hears him say, "That wasn't too bad."

Gadget reminds Finn, pointedly, "Half of our visit was awkward silence."

"She only glared for a quarter of it."

Later, Gadget thinks, watching Finn fiddle and hum and haw under Amy's stripping, burning, disarming, _demanding_ gaze for the third time in a month, that there's something missing. He sees Finn's thumbs, his fingers, restless, twitching and turning in his lap, and Gadget's struck, hard, with this feeling, a wave washing over him that _this isn't right_. Gadget knows what's missing, he's sure of it, but it's just out of reach, a breath too far from his grabbing, clutching hands.

Then, as they walk home from Amy's that day, he sees it, in the corner of his eye; Finn, right hand in the motion of grabbing for his shoulder, where for years a white lock would spill over and he could grab, run it between his fingers, fiddle and twist.

A memory surfaces: The two of them, younger, late high school, Gadget slipping out of the house at one in the morning because if he stays inside, where the death and cold and emptiness his father left behind aches the hardest, he might punch the walls in two, every single one, and then break and bend and snap over the rubble right after, a broken body to match the broken home it came from. He leaves, he sneaks over, desert night lukewarm and clammy against the back of his neck, and he arrives at the gaping maw of his best friend's front door, where the hinges creak and the door opens as soon as Gadget's foot meets the doormat.

It's a comforting memory; Finn, shoulders tired and slumped but eyes and arms warm, curling around Gadget, letting him step into his space and his embrace, there, in the doorway, and both taking a moment to pause and breathe. It's this lull, this potential energy building between them before moving again, that does Gadget in. His chest breaks open and a single, harrowed sob, more a hiccup and an exhale than a cry, spills out, but its muffled by Finn's chest, contained, away from the prying eyes of others and kept just for them. In this stillness, Gadgets cards his fingers through the hair on Finn's back, focusing on the softness of the locks instead of ache of a late father, and the digits begin looping the tufts into loose braids.

Gadget thinks of this moment, sees this in his mind's eye as he watches Finn try and register why there's nothing there, why his fingers feel nothing, and Gadget wonders how much they really lost that night, weeks ago, besides sleep and besides hair.


End file.
